Closing Credits

4052011

We as humans, or maybe just Americans, want to eradicate evil. We want the credits to roll with the villain dead or neutered. It’s the old westerns, Star Wars, history text books; it’s the “climax” and “ending” in just about every screenplay. But this is not a movie and the credits don’t roll and Evil isn’t so easily taken out because Evil is an ideology and ideologies don’t die swift deaths. Partly, or especially, because those that hold them, by nature, feel that they are “right”. There is no right. There is no one evil. Nothing is as clean and simple as “they” would like you to believe. And sometimes we are the Evil.

I don’t know if he did or didn’t deserve to die and don’t care to make that judgment, but his death WAS symbolic and not simple. I will judge that it was pretty shitty for him to put his wife in place to take a bullet for him (if that is indeed what happened).

I’ve purposely NOT been listening to the news or pseudo-news about this, but instead have been listening to my friends, co-workers, acquaintances. I’ve been listening for sincere thoughts and talking points. They’re not too difficult to discern.

Let’s let him rest, let’s let this rest, let’s let our troops rest, let’s let the people of Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan rest. Let’s let our own inner Evil rest and just take a break, shall we? The closing credits could read completely different.